A narratively engrossing, historically informative addition to the category of American immigration sagas.
A novelistic memoir offers an Italian immigration tale that honors the author’s grandmother, whose unflagging determination secured the American dream for her family.
Vittoria Maria Damato was born in January 1881 in a small, impoverished town in southern Italy. Her mother died when Vittoria was 9 years old, and her father, left with three young children to raise, remarried. But his second wife, Giuliana, was especially unloving toward Vittoria, the eldest. In 1897, at 16, Vittoria realized she must leave her father’s home. With trepidation but fortitude, she boarded a New York City–bound ship by herself, moved into an overcrowded tenement, and began working in the garment industry. Two years later, 23-year-old Leonardo Sorresse also left southern Italy for the promise of greater opportunities. After arriving in New York, he moved into Vittoria’s East Harlem neighborhood. The two were introduced to each other by mutual friends, and in 1901, they married. But unlike Vittoria, Leonardo, a volatile man with a grandiose self-image, was not happy with his immigrant status. When Vittoria became pregnant, he insisted she go back to Italy, moving in with his parents, for the birth of their first child. Leonardo returned for a visit and then refused to leave Italy. It would take another two decades and the birth of eight more children before Vittoria would see her dream of living in America realized. Most of the family information in Canzoniero’s narrative is derived from the stories told to him by his mother and her sisters. Then he augments their memories with black-and-white family photographs, imaginative dialogue and vignettes, engaging mini-tutorials on the history of southern Italy before and after the country was unified, and vividly detailed accounts of the bigotry Italians faced in an increasingly anti-immigrant America. The author’s lively descriptions of the Sorresses’ experiences are rich, depicting the uniquely Italian cultural, religious, and gastronomic customs that they brought with them to their new country and joyfully celebrated in New York’s closely knit Italian community. But it is Vittoria’s courage, cleverness, and resilience that give this touching book its heart.
A narratively engrossing, historically informative addition to the category of American immigration sagas.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2021
ISBN: 979-8750759422
Page Count: 317
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
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